A Learning and Development Blog

Dream the impossible e-dream

Another nail struck firmly on the head by Clive Shepherd in his post on the four Ts. So often, when keen individuals walk through our training room doors, their expectations are high. Unfortunately, equally, their expectations are also very often unrealistic. It soon becomes clear that there might not only be a lot to learn (but attainable) but a lot of time will be required to reach the appropriate skill level.

Clive explains this needs practise and practise needs time. Those already in the learning and development field may not need skills in how adults learn in general (you’d hope) but they will need to adapt their skills to design for a different delivery medium. This means stepping into a whole new technological world – and, oh, how much of it there is! On the other hand those who might already be tech-savvy may not have the necessary skills in what make good learning. Therefore each of these groups need up-skilling.

It’s encouraging to continually witness continued enthusiasm of people on the eLearning courses I run. Of course there are dips – usually when they realise exactly how much is involved. But there are also highs when they realise they often have more experience and aptitude than they might have thought. When they leave, their high expectations may have been capped, but mostly they still leave enthused and keen to put their new-found knowledge into practise.

However, that’s often when we hit the biggest downer of all ….

With these skills gaps already identified by organisations, employees are signed up for training courses to achieve what’s required. It’s great news that organisations recognise this and are investing in their employees. It’s certainly a step in the right direction. However, along with the investment comes unrealistic expectations of speedy implementation. In a previous post, I discussed the likelihood of compromising quality when unrealistic goals are set when implementing an in-house e-learning project.

This isn’t just limited to the domain of eLearning design though – again as I replied to a comment from Clarke Quinn to that same post above. Throughout the years L&D teams have been faced with unrealistic time-scales and misconceptions about how much work is involved in developing learning programmes – whether they are eLearning, formal face to face training or even e-bites of instructional ‘how-to’ support material. The result? A compromise on quality or working ridiculously long hours or both!

Unless a clear eLearning strategy is agreed and supported by senior executives and across all levels of the organisation, we may likely to see a slow improvement in the quality of in-house produced eLearning content.

It’s not an impossible dream – it can happen with commitment, support and understanding.